Monday, January 30, 2017

Chip-8 on the Studio II ?! You bet!!

Hi folks!

After posting my attempt on making a Chip-8 game or demo work on the Studio II, Marcel von Tongeren has taken the challenge on adapting the Chip-8 interpreter and on his first try...well guess what folks...It works!

FliP from Atari Age was the first to try out on real hardware and here's the picture to prove it:

In the meantime, i was replying to Marcel on Atari Age (and here afterwards) and here's some text from my reply to Marcel (on A.A.):

... "Oh and i've just seen the post of FliP on Atari Age that he tested your chip8.bin with thegame Breakout and it works! I am so much impressed! This is amazing!

This is quite a step to be able to play Chip8 games on the Studio II and this is yourfirst attemp...totally incredible! You're the main man, Marcel! =)"

And indeed, Marcel is the main man! Way to go Marcel! (Woo!Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!) (lol!) But also, i wrote (or stated) that for playing his Chip8.bin with a Chip8 game on a Studio II, you would need to perform a small mod to be able to switch off the Studio II interpreter like Flip has done in his picture (check on the left, there's a resistor which has a side loose - that's the R2 resistor between both CS2 (pin #20 on each ROMS) and the Vcc (+5Volts)).

But i can say that i apologize on this statement as i found out that you can play Chip8 games without mofifying any Studio II, you just need FliP's multicart and set Jumpers 1 and 2 (JP1 & JP2) to these settings like on this picture:

Set JP1 to position 2-3 (cartridge kernel) and JP2 to position 2-3 (cartridge TPA) and load on the flash EPROM Marcel's "chip8.bin" from (let's say..) 70000 to 703FF and a Chip8 game (for now, 1K or less in size) from 70400 to max 707FF. That's an example of course as i'm using the last block as the flash EPROM has no games on it.

Still don't beleive this works ? Then check out this video i've made after i discovered that changing the position of the jumpers:

Like i wrote back to Marcel: "I was shitting rainbows as i saw the games working!!" (LOL!!) So Marcel's Chip8 for the Studio II works great even if it needs some tweaks but for a first tryout...Man! It's totally amazing! And remember Marcel, i'll give you a huge hug if i see you in person! ;)

Oh and in the video, there is some Chip8 games that most people never seen or heard. Like i wrote in a previous post, i will post all the Chip8 game i have until now (about 110 and no alternates) very soon. So thanks to Marcel, the game library of the Studio II will increase with time!